Archive for the ‘ 54mm soldiers ’ Category

Plastic gladiators review

When I was a child I was used to play with soft plastic soldiers. Now I am older and I play with lead soldiers. I’m not so interested in plastic soldiers and I haven’t got them. I have got the new rigid plastic 28mm soldiers, but they are a bulk version for the lead ones when you have to built masses of pieces, and they are compatible with the standard corpse structure of the lead ones. Because I want to offer an overview of miniatures available for use as gladiators, I have to speak about plastic gladiators, a world that I know little. To accomplish the task I utilise the experience of Plastic Soldier Review, where you can go to read more about these pieces. I’m utilising here photos taken from that website too. Here you can find my personal brief reviews based on my knowledge of gladiators.

Atlantic

These are the soldiers of my childhood. I loved them so much. Only today I realized that their classic range was based on a confused knowledge of the period. Not only these gladiator are based on personal fantasies of the sculptor, but all the range was a farce. When I saw them today I thought that you can use them as Red Martians in a John Carter set… Moreover I wonder on which use you can do of the Christians…




Orion

I’m sure, the sculptor had seen the “Gladiator” film. And that film is not a film about historical gladiators but on what Hollywood believe is Rome and gladiators. So, if you want to play with film character these pieces are good, otherwise you can put them in a bin. Well, you can save something, but only a little. The fun part is the joke in the box, where you can find a gladiator with a pistol and a Wehrmacht helmet and another one with the right arm raised. Hail Caesar!





Italeri

At last, something with a tentative of historical carefulness. You have to put away the axes, but the content of the box resembles gladiators. Add some shields, and with some work you can obtain some right pieces. But if we are honest, the only right pieces are the retiarii. The piece that stands out is the chariot, for a fantasy essedarius proposal. Beautiful, but nothing more.




Pegasus

If you want plastic gladiators you have to buy this set! Beautiful poses, right armours, various types of fighters, a scissor and two dwarfs! There are even some inaccuracies, gross ones, but the overall aspect is great. I suggest to add the right shields (you can made them with cardboard or green stuff) and change some head to obtain something better.




Nikolai

And now some spectators, but only in 20mm format, while as general use in plastic soldiers world you can find the same proposal in 20mm and 54mm sizes. If you have got the right arena, this maker provides two sets of people to populate it.

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Ismahell 06 I-C

3Evan is a model makers and wargamers Italian team that we met at Lucca C&G convention. We are thinking to work together on something. I bought a mecha sculpted by them for their Epoque rules. I thought that resin could be easy to handle. Moreover, could be intriguing the using of special effects by Vallejo ranges as “Metallic Medium”, “Crackle Medium” and “Pigment Binder”. So I was too much confident and I made a lot of mistakes. I painted all one time, applied great decals and than I had to dissolve all due to ugly varnishes results. So I repainted all and applied not so great new decals. When I assembled all I discovered that some pieces had to be modelled by hot water for a better shape, and pivots were needed if you wanted to don’t pose it in a fixed way. This is called preliminary assembling by REAL modellers…

If you are more skilled and smart than me, you can buy these great models here: https://www.3evan.it/Epoque/model.html

However this is my result… Urban camouflage and some rust. Better than I expected after all my mistakes…




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Happymodel (oct. 2013)

This is the market for railway modelling in Rome. Approximately every a couple of months, or more, we have this event inside a school gym. It can be the opportunity to find something that can be useful for my miniatures.

Railway modelling is a hobby almost comparable with 3D wargame. But the real effort is to create large dioramas. We think always to create a movable space where put miniatures in a way to move them easily and precisely. Instead their aim is to have a fixed realistic landscape where trains can move along a rail net. So, we have some common characteristics, but very different scales and aims.

I feel this hobby world as distant from me. I don’t mind all kinds of railway cars available and what is related to them. They are captivating but I can’t understand 120 euro for a little piece of plastic with wheels. Whereas I find justifiable the same amount of money for miniatures or action figures…

Some remarkable things. Some tramway cars used on local lines. Note the double decker used at the begin of the last century.
Below, a 54mm diorama with toy soldiers. I can’t understand why these miniatures are sold inside these kind of fairs. They aren’t trains. However I saw around someone that sold single Foundry’s medieval miniatures with a wood base and a banner at the bargain price of 12 euro… Toy soldiers hobbyists don’t know the real price of our miniatures…

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Happy Model +Libri +Liberi

As I said before, there are some things that are almost the same year after year, some periodic appointments that you can find on this blog year after year. So we have another Happy Model, the big edition before Christmas. I was there the last year, as you can read on this post. It is a national market for railway modelling and even for other related stuff. Here you can see a scene that recreate the railway near my house.

This year I found a large quantity of soldiers for collectors. I’m amazed from the quality of this delicacies. They are still little soldiers but you can show a lot of details. It would be a great thing to play with these soldiers but they cost a lot and you need bigger tables.

In the following photos you can see materials for thousands of euros…

…and a joy for the eyes!

The madness is always the same: I could buy only a bunch of them for a little skirmish, they are so beautiful,…

…but after rationality come back so you are free of absurd thoughts.

The real danger: play my Ferrum et Gloria with 54mm!

These times are even those ones for +Libri +Liberi, the national market for small publishers. Last year I was there. You can find pile of interesting books but you cannot find enough space at home to store just a couple of them. I found various titles but I restricted myself to only two book. The first one is an edition of Opera Nova by Achille Marozzo, a guide written in the XVIth century about sword fighting. A great document about techniques that you can find in those years but even for all that regards fight with hand weapons. I hope I find some ideas for Ferrum et Gloria.

The latter is a book about the months from the landing of Anzio and Nettunia to the invasion of Rome. This time watched from an Italian perspective! I’m tired of reports written by winners, history is another thing. The fairy tale told to us is about US soldiers (and the other people didn’t exist at all!) who wanted to give us liberty and only bad Nazis slowed them. So this one is another view, with Italians in it! I reenact every year the landing from the bad guys side, as an Italian paratrooper. You can read it on the last year post.

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